All Forum Posts by: Cliff Benner

great write up. thank you for taking your time and going in to detail. i have been looking into a business for myself but havent seen much in biz bysell that make sense. just need to keep searching

 Please let me know if you find a good process

If you were a former CPA, then it should know why investors should be looking at it. If no one tells them about balance sheet, then real estate investors aren't going to focus on them.

My clients are always looking at the balance sheets after I taught them the importance of it.

There are a lot of times not just real estate investors, just regular business owners, they look at the P&L and say great, I made $100K this year, but my bank is showing $10K, where is the rest of the money. The P&L isn't going to tell you that, you need to see the Balance Sheet.

Put it simply, if an investor decided to hire someone like me to start handling their books and have to gather their financial statements, I would be charging an arm and leg to put it correctly. If they are using only P&L. I would need to figure out the building and land, mortgages, contributions, improvements and such.

I am constantly seeing the constant push for baselane. I am a consultant and accountant so I am always open to different platforms.

My question for the baselane users here, does it generate balance sheet? cash flow reports, 12 month cash flow reports? Can you edit Chart of Accounts? Can you generate any of these reports as well as the P&L for each property? Can it consolidate all the properties into 1 report to see the overall picture?

Without these reports, you can't truly see a full picture of your financials.

I am proadvisor for both QBO and Xero. I use Buildium and AppFolio. I love Yardi Voyager. All of these platforms can do all of the above reports and more. I can never recommend any products without these simple reports.

thanks in advance for the answers.

@Tarcizio Goncalves

Stessa is an excellent platform for tracking income and expenses for investors; it is user-friendly. However, its downfall (and really what makes it so easy) is that it is a single-entry system.

This means there are no checks and balances to ensure all transactions are entered correctly. A double-entry system (like QuickBooks) allows you to reconcile your bank statements, ensuring no missing or duplicate transactions. I would recommend Stessa so much more if you could reconcile; hopefully, they will! Or maybe they do now since the last time I used it.

Overall, I think it’s an excellent solution for smaller portfolios because you can easily spot any discrepancies. However, if you have a more extensive portfolio or plan to become larger in the next year or two, I would look for a double-entry system that allows bank reconciliations. Most bookkeepers won’t work in it if you plan to outsource it in the future.

I use QuickBooks Online (QBO) for my flipping business, rental businesses, and bookkeeping clients. QBO has every feature you need to run a business, excellent reporting features and integration with other software. It is the most popular software in the industry, and most Tax Preparers are familiar with it, which makes tax season easier.

My Recommendation: Spreadsheets are usually fine for your first 1-3 properties. 3+ properties, you should use a software. If you plan to scale at all, I recommend QBO. If you do not like bookkeeping/accounting/technology, hire a bookkeeper specializing in real estate investors.